How far does
machinery degrade, demoralize, dementalize the worker?
The constantly growing specialization of machinery is the most striking
industrial phenomenon of modern times. Since the worker is more and more
the attendant of machinery, does not this mean a corresponding
specialization of the worker? It would seem so at first sight, yet if we
look closer it becomes less obvious. So far as mere manual activity is
concerned, it seems probable that the general effect of machinery has
been both to narrow the range of that activity, and to take over that
dexterity which consisted in the incessant repetition of a single
uniform process. Very delicately specialized manipulation is precisely
the work it pays best to do by machinery, so that, as Professor Marshall
says, "machinery can make uniform actions more accurately and
effectively than man can; and most of the work which was done by those
who were specially skilful with the fingers a few generations ago, is
now done by machinery."[15] He illustrates from the wood and metal
industries, where the process is constantly going on.
"The chief difficulty to be overcome is that of getting the machinery to
hold the material firmly in exactly the position in which the machine-
tool can be brought to bear on it in the right way, and without wasting
meanwhile too much time in taking grip of it. But this can generally be
contrived when it is worth while to spend some labour and expense on it;
and then the whole operations can often be controlled by a worker, who,
sitting before the machine, takes with the left hand a piece of wood or
metal from a heap, and puts it in a socket, while with the right he
draws down a lever, or in some other way sets the machine-tool at work,
and finally with his left hand throws on to another heap the material
which has been cut, or punched, or drilled, or planed exactly after a
given pattern.
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